April 30th, 2009
by Lorrie Thomas
I read a great post today from Seth Godin about business strategy. Seth says:
“You shouldn’t pick your strategy by modeling someone else’s success. The success might have been strategic and planned, but it’s just as likely to be a matter of blind luck.”
I don’t know if I agree 100% about the luck part, as I am a firm believer that success comes from hard work and strong thinking.
But I DO AGREE with Seth that you should not pick strategy based on someone else’s success.
I am SO OVER treating web marketing clients that have consumed the infomercial marketing Kool-aid. You know what I am talking about – people go to workshops and spend thousands of dollars to learn “strategy secrets” based on the success stories of an entrepreneur that boasts how they work part time and have a beach house and preach the “I live the life of my dreams and so can you, buy my success secrets” Uh, yeah…..my blood is boiling as I blog about this…..I loathe “binge and purge” marketing.
There IS NO FORMULA!!
We are paid equally to how much we are willing to think. Thought requires time, energy and effort and although it may be easier to buy the seminar or success secrets, the liklihood that luck will save you from yourself is small.
Just because a marketing or business strategy worked for one organization, does not mean it will work for you. You can get ideas from success stories, but how you apply them to your business needs to be custom.
Strategy is a game plan…it requires thought, creativity, effort and dedication (and maybe some luck!)
Don’t be a marketing victim, quick and dirty copying of strategy will just equal dirty results.
Be a critical thinker…copying someone else’s success strategy will not equal success.
Web Marketing Therapy Related Links:
- Web Marketing Dose of the Day – Skipping Steps Kills Success
- Ask the Marketing Therapist – Small Business Owners and Marketing Mistakes
- Web Marketing Tip – Never Stop Learning
- The Art of Relationships (and what Valentine’s Day can remind us about Marketing)
Coree
(April 30th, 2009 at 1:34 pm)
I agree with you on having your own strategy and voice for your blog. I’ve been reading about how some people even use something like a scraper to take all the content off of a blog and just copy it to another website to create instant content for themselves! I recently bought into the whole idea of a certain blogger that had just released a new e-book…I saw others promoting it and thought hey, it must be good. But, it was the same thing you hear everywhere else with a bunch of affiliate links in it where you could “do what they did” and make THEM money by signing up under their links. I do believe some affiliate strategy is ok, but the reason they make so much money is because they already have a huge following and have other big names promoting them as well. If you’re just starting out, you need to come up with your own ideas to market or you are just working for someone else and might as well go back to having a real J-O-B that pays consistently.
Keith T.
(April 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm)
I agree that it is not effective to directly copy or use someone else’s strategy just because it worked for them. However, there is something to be said about using parts of a successful strategy to create your own.
Consider a successful example a template that can provide some guidelines, then you will need to apply the “…thought, creativity, effort and dedication (and maybe some luck!)” to it to make it work for you and your unique business situation.
Anything worth having takes effort. People that claim otherwise are definitely selling you something you don’t need, no matter how great it sounds…
Pamela Sherman
(April 30th, 2009 at 3:51 pm)
So TRUE –great post! Thinking uniquely, strategically, and creatively –is what makes “the difference.” –And then connecting that with execution, that’s what rocks. Seminars are better when they stimulate creative thinking and teach you HOW to think differently for yourself and your business.